Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-07-14
SAM COX
Pays His Respects to Some HewIers on
the Flag Question.

live in one of the princes. 1t is
Pimkipo. 1t is few miles below Con-
staDtinople in the sea of Marmora. The
isle, like that in Shakespeare's ITEM
pest" was "full of strange noises''-n0t
the nightingale in the evening, not the
cocks at dawn, not the shepherds or the
venders of fish, nor the dry cicada, nor
the flap of the American flag in front of
our Legation. These were pleasures,
and they did not interrupt my morning
dreams, but hark! when the sun points
| in gold and purple the Asian noun
tains, hear an equivocal sort of brait.
1t is the distant thunder Of JOve from
Mont Olympus. in sight of our isle. Is
it the rolling of the ismid train across
the channel? 1t starts afar! It ap-
proaches! 1t is-No? 1t is the grand
diapason of the jackasses. 1t frfghts
the isle from its propriety.
Be it known that the isle is full of
tionkeys. They carry water and veg
etables-and tourists-up and down
over the mountains. / am not un-
friendly to the donkey. He has a
good name for patience and industry.
| was familiar with them in and out Of
Congress. admire their courage. They
can whip a California grizzly. But I
must draw the line on some Of his
qualities. draw it on the bray. When
Jack salutes his Jennie, though miles
apart, then the jubilees of noisy affec-
tion begins. 1t is an Internal concert,
amorour, jocund and ear-benumbing.
1t starts with an exaggerated case of
asthma. This rasps your soul. The
beast loses, then catches its breath with
harsh, squeakish Jibiliation, and
roar as of forty hungry lions comes to
its relief. All the powers Of wheeZy,
whistling, gasping suction are ex-
hausted. Then follow terrific expira-
tions of the believing monster. Sue
ton and emission--repea with
'damnable iteration"-until the noise
dies out in agony unutterable. used
to hear when boy the creaking of the
untarred wheels of the Conestega team
from Pennsylvania. / have lately
heard the screaming shadoof turned by
blind buffalos, pumping the Nile upon
the fruitful land of Egypt, but never
before or since have heard such
diabolical concert as this braying of
the donkeys of Pimkipo-until Foraker
got the asthma about the flags and
Fairchild got the palsy, and John
Sherman both. Wisconsin took up the
asinine strain, Ohio gives its sonorous
bray, and New York, with her new
Senator and her Greeley Tribune, adds
her furious pulmination. All bedlam
was let loose in q howl of horror-and
all for what? If not to provoke assas-
sination, at least to regain political
power, not by the still small voice of
reason, but by the elemental fury
(which is as senseless as it is tempestn-
ous Do these howlers think the peo-
PIE do not know what the incident
meant?-A tender-it may be inop-
perfume and not legal-but tender of
kindly regard, after generation of the
wharf and woof, the mere threads,
the eolored emblems of lost cause,
which all good men would desire to be
forgotten.
When Charles Sumner offered to
erase the names of the battles upon our
flags, Massachusetts proposed to draw
| black lines around his honored name.
He was a student. He had read the
words of the Roman that was wise to
build bridge of gold for retreating
soldier in civil war. He read the words
ofthe Roman Senator that all trophies
of such civil contests molder and pass
away. He had read the amnesty at the
games of conquered Athens and in his
mind he heard again the bugle of the
Roman herald proclaiming amnesty
and grace from Rome to conquered
Greece. He had read and pondered
something better. Perhaps he had
heard the psalm ef the Hebrew King
as he chanted to the deliverance of his
people from bondage. 'tThen was our
mouth filled with laughter and our
tongue with singing. The Lord had
done great things for us, whereof we
are glad. Turn again our captivity,
Oh, Lord, as the streams in the south"
These studies of civil war and of amnes-
ty had not been the recreation or Joy of
the Republican leaders. They read the
gospel of anarchy and rejoice in the
covenant of death and hell. The Gov
ernor of Ohio, who SO inaptly fills the
place once occupied by Morrow, Me-
Arthur, Lucas, Corwin, and Allen,
telegraphed to some attorneys in Wash
ington to get out an Injunction against
the delivery of the flags. Had he lived
eighteen hundred and seventy-eight
years ago, when the angelic choir
chanted. Peace on earth, good will to
men, he would have sought for the
Roman judex at Bethlehem to enioin
the angelic choir, unless they had sung,
Hate on earth and ILL will to men.u
Nay, further, had he lived in the vi
cinity of the mountain where Christ
taught US how to forgive our enemies
and pray for those who despitefully use
US, he would have invoked, with
frenzied blasphemy, Cesar himself to
close the lips of the divine teacher.
And he would have been ably seconded
by the gentle Fairchild, who with aim
less fury would have cried out: "Palsied
be the tongue that utters such benign
lessons of forgiveness The teachings
of those days remain. They are In the
minds of him who spake, mot as Hebrew,
not as Pagan, who spake as never man
spake, when from the nameless mount
he taught that forgiveness only was
great and good; that retaliation was
sad and bad; that to love and pray for
your enemies was wise and noble. He
taught for all time that for man or q
state, for life or for death, the benignity
of amnesty in the heart and on the
statute was more jubilant than queen
ly jubilees and more permanent than
empires founded on force ofarms or on
the petrifaction of the human heart.
To the noisy and thoughtiess iconoc-
lasts or representative government and
federal fellowship, to the sectional and
naIicioiIe auafharnakfzora ~ ffio x,aar y